


We'll rise up free and easy

by Sarsaparilla, woofgender



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Cuddling & Snuggling, Gun Violence, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, Imprisonment, Kidnapping, M/M, Off-screen torture, implied future relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 13:13:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12109473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarsaparilla/pseuds/Sarsaparilla, https://archiveofourown.org/users/woofgender/pseuds/woofgender
Summary: Steve and Natasha are away on a mission when Sam receives intel about the Winter Soldier’s location. When he follows the lead, Sam finds something unexpected—but despite his initial impression, it’s certainly not all bad. (Post-CATWS, not AOU- or CACW-compliant.)__________"'Jesus Christ,' Sam said, 'Are you planning on fighting an entire army?'Barnes looked up from examining the sights of a sniper rifle. '...no,' he said, a little guiltily, and adjusted one of the--five? Six? guns he’d already strapped to himself."





	We'll rise up free and easy

**Author's Note:**

> My fic for the Sam Wilson Birthday Bang 2017, and also my first fic on ao3! Thank you so much to the SWBB mods, who've put in so much work to make this event a success. A huge thanks also to my beta reader Magpie (neuromagpie on tumblr) and my beta and sensitivity reader Jo (oh_no_oh_dear on ao3) for all your help in making this fic better.
> 
> Finally, thanks to Sarsaparilla (sarsaparillaswords on tumblr) for the AMAZING ART that accompanies this fic!
> 
> __________
> 
> Two content warnings not covered in the tags: there is a brief mention of a character being drugged against their will, and one short scene where two characters eat food.
> 
> Also: I don't speak Russian, but I did look up some verb conjugation and pronoun declension charts, so I'm maybe 92% sure that the (brief) Russian in this fic is correct. If it's not, please let me know!
> 
> Title is (slightly adapted) from "Up the Wolves" by The Mountain Goats.

The way it happened was:

Steve had been called off on some Avengers business (“Be careful,” Sam had said, knowing Steve wouldn’t listen, but Steve had clasped Sam’s shoulder and said, “I know.” He’d dashed out the door before Sam could figure out how to react), and Sam had been alone in his house for the first time in months. Steve had been staying in his spare bedroom when they weren’t on the road together. Sam didn’t mind--Steve was a polite and considerate houseguest--but without Steve there, the house felt too big and empty. He’d been almost relieved to get a call from Natasha about a lead they’d uncovered while on said Avengers business, a sighting of a man with a metal hand in north Jersey. Sam was still on a leave of absence from the VA, so that afternoon, he took his new car (Steve had insisted on helping him buy it) north up I-95 and rented a motel room in Trenton as a base of operations. He didn’t even grumble to Nat about Jersey.

Once he was there, the leads were easy to follow. It didn’t occur to him until much, much later that he should have been suspicious that, by mid-afternoon the next day, he’d found an old Hydra bunker in a local nature preserve. He crouched in a stand of trees, sheltered behind undergrowth, and peered through his binoculars. The bunker looked abandoned; the concrete facade was crumbling in places, and tangled vegetation was growing over the places where the bunker was set into the side of a slope. There was still a path leading to the entrance, with rusty signs reading US GOVERNMENT FACILITY -- KEEP OUT, and a barbed wire fence with a locked gate. When he crept closer, though, he saw there were recent footprints on the soft, damp dirt of the path--a single set, leading into the bunker--and that the fence had been cut to allow someone to pass through. 

Sam retreated back into the bushes and had a brief, silent argument with himself. The reasonable side of him said that he should never enter a Hydra facility alone with nothing but a bulletproof vest, a combat knife, and a silenced handgun (courtesy of Nat). Despite the single set of footprints, it might not just be Barnes in there--there could be another entrance--or it could be someone else entirely. Even if it was only Barnes, the guy had nearly killed Sam in their last encounter, and there was no real reason to think that he’d be any less deadly now, no matter what Steve said about Barnes pulling him out of the Potomac.

Meanwhile, the adventurous part of Sam--the part that was willing to fly around in an experimental jetpack and sign up to fight a massive Nazi death cult with some guy he’d met just a handful of times--said that this might be their best shot. In all the months that Steve and Sam (and sometimes Nat) had been looking for Bucky, they’d never gotten this close. The sighting was less than a day old, and the footprints were even more recent. 

Sam thought for a moment, and then pulled out his phone. He had just enough signal to log onto the encrypted messaging app Nat had made him install and send her a message with his coordinates and a brief note: _If you don’t hear from me in 12 hrs, send help_. He made sure the message had gone through, then tucked the phone into a ziploc bag and dug a little hole in the soft earth beneath his feet to bury it, carefully covering the disturbed ground with leaves and brush. The tracking chip in the phone would provide a backup location signal, in case this went south.

Then, heart pounding with adrenaline, he loaded a clip into his gun, checked his knife, and set off towards the bunker. He stayed low to the ground and moved slowly, hoping that might offset the woefully inadequate camouflage his dark-colored gear provided in such a green landscape. He slipped through the hole in the fence and, as he approached the building, drew his gun. He followed the footprints up to the door, where he encountered a problem, something that he’d missed when he’d checked with the binoculars: there was no handle and no lock to pick, just a blank door and a keypad beside it. 

Four of the numbers were worn down, and Sam guessed those numbers probably made up the code, but he had no idea how many guesses the system would give him. He was starting to weigh the possibility of shooting the keypad and seeing what happened when there was a soft thump behind him, and then something cold pressed against the base of his skull. 

He froze, slowly raising his hands into the air. “Turn around slowly,” a low voice said from behind him. He obeyed, heart thumping frantically in his chest. 

It wasn’t Barnes. It was a white man Sam had never seen before--military haircut, unfamiliar camouflage fatigues with, yup, a little octopus patch on the shoulder, handgun leveled at Sam’s forehead. _Fuck_ , Sam thought fervently. 

“Give me the gun,” the man said, holding out a hand. Thinking fast, Sam made sure he visibly hesitated to hand it over. Then, the moment when it contacted the man’s hand, when the man’s focus shifted minutely from Sam to the gun, Sam drew his knife, lightning-fast, and slashed at the man’s gun hand. The man cried out and dropped his gun, and Sam pressed his advantage, going for the man’s face and following up with a punch. The man staggered back, but too soon, he recovered enough to get Sam’s own gun up and aim it at Sam’s head. 

“Drop the fucking knife,” the man snarled, spitting blood from where Sam had cut his lip. “Drop the _fucking knife, I’ll fucking kill you--_ ”

“Okay, okay!” Sam said, dropping the knife with more than a little regret. It was a good knife. 

“You fucking son of a--you’re gonna pay for this,” the man growled. Sam had barely a moment to brace himself before two more camouflaged figures emerged from the overgrown vegetation and spun him around. One of them shoved him to his knees, while the other forced his wrists into handcuffs. He made himself read that as a good sign. They weren’t going to kill him immediately. That was good, right?

Unbidden, some of the things he’d read in various files on Barnes came to mind. _Fuck_ , he thought again. Maybe it wasn’t good. 

“Cap send you to do his dirty work?” one of the other men said, leering at Sam. “You here to get his revenge for him?”

_Revenge?_ Sam thought. Outwardly, he forced a grin and said, “Whoa, hey, no safeword or nothing? What kind of club are you running here?” His voice only shook a little, which he counted as a victory.

“Ha ha,” the first man said flatly. “Answer the fucking question.”

“Man, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I’m just out here trying to take a nice nature walk and you all show up acting like stop and frisk has been extended to Jersey.” 

“You usually have a gun with you on nature walks?” the third man asked.

“When I think I might get jumped by a bunch of paramilitary dipshits, sure,” Sam said levelly. 

“Oh, we got a real comedian here,” said the second man. “Tough guy, huh?”

Sam looked as unimpressed as he could possibly manage, given the actual neo-Nazis holding him at gunpoint. His heart was pounding so loudly he wondered if they could hear it. 

“Get him up. We’re going inside,” the first man ordered. The other two took Sam’s elbows and pulled him to his feet, none too gently. The first man went to the keypad and punched in a code; Sam craned his neck to try to see the code, but one of his captors cuffed him in the back of the head, and he stumbled, blinking as his vision swirled with colors. 

Inside, the bunker was cool and dim, with a faint odor of mildew. Sam wrinkled his nose. “Ugh,” he said, stumbling as the men holding his arms pulled him forward, “you couldn’t clean up a little? Maybe toss down a couple of area rugs for a bit of color?” One of the guys dragging him along gave him a weird look. “Oh, right, I forgot,” Sam said, “you guys aren’t really about color, are you.” 

The men ignored him, dragging him down a series of a twisting, narrow hallways deeper into the bunker. Twice, they half-carried him down a flight of stairs. Eventually, past a heavy, reinforced door, they hauled him down a short flight of steps and stopped in front of a row of cells. 

“Search him,” the first man ordered. 

“Whoa, hey,” Sam said as the two holding him began to go through his pockets and pat him down thoroughly, “buy me a drink first, maybe!” They uncuffed him, unfastened his bulletproof vest and yanked it off, none too gently. “Or dinner,” he added. “Dinner works too.” One of the men untied his boots and pulled those off, too, while the other went for his belt, leaving him in just t-shirt and trousers. “Seriously, no sweet-talk or anything?” Sam asked, trying to keep himself from shaking or flinching under their hands.

One of his captors finally cracked. “Shut the fuck _up_!” the third man shouted, drawing his gun. Sam couldn’t help it, he flinched away, but the man didn’t fire. Instead, a blindingly bright line of pain bloomed on the back of Sam’s head. His vision filled with stars, and a wave of nausea was all that kept him from screaming. The man must have pistol-whipped him, he realized after a slow, swirling moment of agony. He staggered and his knees folded beneath him; his captors grabbed him by the elbows and dragged him over to where the first man had unlocked the cell.

“Since you’ve been working so hard,” the first man said, smirking, “let’s help you out with that search of yours.” He nodded to Sam’s captors, one of whom planted a booted foot in the small of Sam’s back and kicked him into one of the cells. 

Sam stumbled and fell, barely bringing his arms up in time to break his fall. Behind him, he heard the men laughing uproariously over the clanking noise of the door locking. “Have fun!” one of them jeered, and they disappeared back up the stairs. 

Sam was definitely going to do something real unfriendly to them when he got out of here.

Gingerly, he pushed himself up off the floor and crawled over to the edge of the cell, where he sat down with his back leaned up against the wall. His head was pounding and he felt dizzy and sick. He made himself breathe slowly and methodically, in and out, in and out, and eventually, his pounding heartbeat slowed and a little of the pain eased. 

Grimly, Sam assessed the situation, dredging up his memories of SERE training. He was alone in a chilly cell in the basement of some dank Hydra bunker in New Jersey. He had no tools or weapons on him, not even his boots. He had a head injury, not to mention bruises from where they’d dragged him. Help wouldn’t come for at least twelve hours. He had to stay alive--

Something moved in the corner of the cell. Sam froze, a fresh wave of adrenaline singing through his veins, his pounding headache receding as he stared hard into the corner. His vision swam, and he blinked frantically, mentally cursing every Hydra agent he’d ever encountered. He was unarmed, probably concussed, and in a cell in a Hydra base, and there was something _in the cell with him_ \--

The figure in the corner slowly shifted forward, until a shaft of light from the corridor fell across its face. Sam stopped breathing. They stared at each other for a long, frozen moment. Somewhere in the fight-or-flight reaction crashing through his skull, Sam wondered why his life wasn’t flashing before his eyes. Wasn’t that supposed to happen in situations like this? 

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the--Barnes? The Soldier? What was Sam supposed to call him?--blinked and looked away. “S’rry,” he croaked, so quiet as to be nearly inaudible.

“I--what?” Sam said blankly. 

“Sorry,” he said, a little clearer.

Sam stared at him in confusion. This was--not what he expected. “For what?” he said, eventually.

“You are frightened. And I. Before. I almost killed you.”

“Don’t flatter yourself too much,” Sam said automatically, then grimaced. Apparently he’d left whatever sense of self-preservation he had outside in the woods. Barnes--and this was definitely Barnes, not the Soldier, something told him--just looked at Sam, expression unchanging. 

“Okay,” Barnes said, eventually. Apparently satisfied, he shifted back into his corner and leaned back against the wall. Once settled, he went preternaturally still--that must have been why Sam hadn’t noticed him until he moved the first time--but Sam could still tell that Barnes’ eyes were open and watchful, now that his own eyes had adjusted to the dimness. 

Sam warily mimicked Barnes’s posture, letting himself settle back against the wall. He winced when his head brushed against the rough concrete and instinctively reached up to touch his scalp, grimacing when his hand came away sticky. 

Across from him, Barnes frowned--the first distinct expression he’d shown the entire time--and leaned forward again. “You’re hurt,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

Sam opened his mouth to say something sarcastic in reply, but a wave of pain overwhelmed him, and he looked down, forcing himself to breathe through it. When he could move again, he looked back up, only to see that Barnes had moved forward and was crouching in front of Sam, alarmingly close. Sam flinched back automatically and immediately regretted it; the motion jolted his head and made his vision blur with pain. 

“Sorry,” Barnes said again.

Sam waved the apology off. “Gimme a minute,” he gasped, and waited until it passed. When he could think again, he looked back up at Barnes, who was still frowning. “What,” Sam said flatly, pain making him lose some of his caution.

“You’re hurt,” Barnes said again. “Can I.” He made a stiff, awkward gesture in the direction of Sam’s head. Sam stared at him in confusion. “Your head,” Barnes added. 

“If you’re asking to feel my hair, the answer’s ‘no,’” Sam said, after a moment. 

“No, your head is bleeding,” Barnes said. 

“Oh,” Sam said. “Uh.” His survival instincts told him he should by no means let Barnes out of his line of sight, but he’d also seen what the guy could do. If Barnes wanted to hurt him, there wasn’t much Sam could do about it, and keeping an eye on him probably wouldn’t make a difference.

After a brief internal struggle, pragmatism won out. “Okay,” Sam said slowly, fervently hoping this wasn’t a terrible idea. He cautiously scooted away from the wall, and Barnes moved behind him.

For a moment, all Sam felt was his own too-fast heartbeat, and then there was a startlingly cold touch against his scalp. He flinched away before conscious thought caught up, but it was gone by the time he realized that it must have been Barnes’ metal hand. “Sorry,” Barnes murmured again. 

“Just startled me. S’fine,” Sam said, trying to sound more confident than he felt. Barnes must have bought it, because the touch returned. The cold metal actually felt sort of pleasant on his aching head, now that Sam was expecting it. Slowly and so, so gently, Barnes tipped Sam’s head this way and that, probably trying to catch what little light there was. After a long moment, Barnes let go and moved back into his line of sight. He visibly hesitated, then slowly took Sam’s face in his hands and stared into his eyes. Sam shivered involuntarily. Barnes’ gaze was intense, and Sam struggled to return it, feeling weirdly shy. When Barnes finally let go and looked away, Sam let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. 

“Well?” he asked after a minute, when Barnes didn’t say anything. 

“It’s not bleeding much. I don’t think it’s fractured. Your.” Barnes visibly stalled out for a moment, then recovered his words. “You might have a concussion.” 

“No shit,” Sam said, before he could stop himself, then winced. 

Barnes frowned. “You don’t...you can.” He huffed out a frustrated breath. “I wouldn’t trust me either, but. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Okay,” Sam said slowly. He didn’t relax. He was sure that Barnes could see his tension, but Barnes said nothing, and Sam really didn’t want to push this conversation any further. His hindbrain remembered too well the steering wheel being wrenched from his grasp, the way Barnes--the Soldier--had yanked him out of the sky. He settled himself back against the wall as best he could and forced his tired eyes to stay open, doing the best he could to keep an eye on both Barnes and the corridor, where the guards would presumably eventually come back. 

__________

When the guards returned--Sam estimated it had been about two hours, give or take, but it was hard to tell without a window--Sam schooled his face into calculated boredom. Inwardly, he felt sickly terrified. He wasn’t sure he could stand up. What if they had come to interrogate him? 

Barnes must have heard them coming first. He went visibly tense, but otherwise did not move. 

The second man from earlier--his nose was misshapen from too many breaks, and Sam mentally decided to call him Lumpy--slammed his hands against the bars of the cell, making the door rattle on its hinges. Sam winced at the noise.

“Aww,” Lumpy sneered, “you two making friends?”

Neither of them moved. 

The first man--Sam mentally dubbed him Grumpy--elbowed Lumpy out of the way. “ _Soldat_ ,” he snapped, and Barnes smoothly rose to his feet. Grumpy beckoned, and Barnes approached the door. The door opened, and Grumpy drew his pistol and cocked it, gesturing with the barrel for Barnes to walk down the hall in the other direction, away from the exit. For a single moment, Barnes looked back at Sam, and then he obeyed. Lumpy relocked the cell door, and the three disappeared around a corner.

Sam felt sick. Against his better judgment, he’d read that awful file on Barnes that Nat had unearthed, mostly because he didn’t want Steve to be alone in his misery. He had no illusions about why they’d taken Barnes out of the cell. But if Sam’d fought back--well. He also had no illusions about how he’d fare, alone, unarmed, injured, and outnumbered. He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, wishing he could stop the intrusive thoughts about what they were probably doing to Barnes. 

In the end, he didn’t wait long. It couldn’t have been more than half an hour later that they returned. Propped up between two of the agents, Barnes was pale--well, paler than he was before--and sweaty, and the agents were clearly taking most of his weight. There was a trickle of blood running from his nose. Sam pressed himself back into the wall. Would--if they had one of those machines like Steve and he had found in DC, would Barnes even remember him now? 

The agents shoved Barnes into the cell, locked the door, and headed back upstairs, this time without saying anything. Sam had a brief internal struggle. He didn’t know what they’d done to Barnes, or whether the guy might be (more) dangerous now, but he’d been thinking while Barnes was gone, and had realized that the guy was also probably his best ticket out of the bunker, at least until Steve and Nat showed up--and he didn’t know how long that would be, not really. He didn’t want to stick around to find out what the assholes upstairs would decide to do to him in the meantime. 

Sam waited until he could no longer hear the agents’ footsteps on the stairs, and then crept forward a little, towards where Barnes had slumped against the wall. 

“Barnes?” he said quietly. Barnes’ head snapped up, and he stared at Sam, who realized it was the first time he’d actually used the name. “Can I call you that?” Sam asked. Barnes squinted at him, then nodded slowly and jerkily. 

“Good,” Sam said. “You okay?”

Barnes opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He grimaced and worked his jaw, then tried again. “I--c-c-c--”

“Take your time, man,” Sam said. Aphasia, at least, was something he knew how to deal with, given how many vets came back with traumatic brain injuries. 

Barnes turned away, pushing his forehead against the wall and making an incoherent noise of frustration. Sam hesitated, then retreated to the far wall to give him space. He watched Barnes for a while, but the guy didn’t seem remotely dangerous. Like him, Barnes didn’t have boots on, Sam noticed for the first time. He was wearing ratty socks. One of them had a hole in the toe.

Gradually, Sam settled into his previous posture: propped against the wall, keeping an eye on both Barnes and the corridor. 

After some time, Sam noticed his eyelids were getting heavy. He blinked, feeling simultaneously irritated and scared. He didn’t want to sleep here. The cell was getting colder, too, he thought. The sun was probably going down outside, but he’d thought they were too far underground to be affected by that. He shivered a little.

He needed a distraction. “Barnes,” he said, “do you think you can talk a little again? 

Barnes looked at him for a long moment. “Maybe,” he croaked. 

“Can I ask you some questions? You don’t have to answer them if you don’t want.”

Barnes looked at him blankly, but didn’t object, so Sam forged ahead.

“How’d you end up here? In this cell?”

Barnes looked down. “They had drugs,” he said, eventually.

“You mean they drugged you?” Sam asked. Barnes nodded. “So you’re not here willingly.” Another nod. Barnes actually looked a little exasperated, which Sam counted as progress. “Okay, okay, I just had to ask, you know?”

They lapsed into uncomfortable silence for a moment. Sam hesitated, but finally asked: “So you remember me from DC?” 

Barnes went very still. His hair had fallen over his eyes, making his face impossible to read. Sam tensed, icy fear swirling through his stomach. But then Barnes visibly swallowed and looked up. “Yes,” he said. “On the helicarrier.” His lips twitched. “You are very hard to kill, for an unenhanced human.” 

“I do all right,” Sam said, feeling weirdly proud. “Listen, Barnes,” he added, lowering his voice. “You wanna get out of here, right?” 

Barnes’s expression went all hunted and nervous. “S’not a trick question,” Sam said. “I don’t want to be in here any longer than I have to. You want to break out with me?”

Slowly, Barnes nodded. “Good,” Sam said. “You know anything about this place that might help us?”

Barnes looked down. “I, I think. More of them coming. Tomorrow.”

Sam felt cold with dread. “There’ll be more Hydra agents here tomorrow?”

Barnes nodded jerkily. “To, to, to reprogram. Me.” He shivered convulsively.

“So we gotta go then, right?”

“I can. Uh. Get us out,” Barnes said. When Sam raised an eyebrow, Barnes flexed the fingers on his left arm, making the servo motors rev. “We s-s-sh. Should. Wait until later tonight. They will be, be tired. Less watchful. You should rest now.”

“Wait, why?” Sam asked, a little indignant at the implications. 

“Sleep is necessary for human function.” 

“...you’ve got me there,” Sam grumbled. “But it’s not safe.”

“I will keep watch.”

“And how can I know that I can trust you?” Sam finally asked, bluntly.

Barnes swallowed. “I. You can’t.” 

“Oh, that helps so much, thanks.”

“I. I promise--” Barnes cut himself off. He sat up straighter, pushed his hair out of his eyes, and arranged his face into what was almost an expression of pleading. “I promise, Mr, um. Mr Falcon?”

Sam stared. “Yes, that is definitely my name,” he said finally.

“I promise that I will do everything I can to keep you safe,” Barnes said, more clearly and firmly than anything else he’d said. 

Sam regarded him for a long moment. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll trust you. And Barnes?” he added. “My name is Sam Wilson.”

Barnes almost smiled.

__________

Making friends with Barnes was all well and good, Sam thought about half an hour later, but it didn’t change the fact that he was trying to take a nap in a dank, cold Hydra bunker. And sure, he liked firm mattresses, but the concrete floor was a bit much. 

He’d sort of curled up in a corner away from the door, tucked his hands under his head, and tried to fall asleep. But despite how tired he was (and he was tired, no matter what he told Barnes), he couldn’t relax. His head was pounding, he was hungry and thirsty, and he just couldn’t get warm. He’d slept in what were probably objectively worse places--in the middle of war zones, for one--but that didn’t seem to matter to his brain.

_I don’t deserve this_ , Sam thought fiercely. _I’m a good fucking person_. Maybe this was some kind of karmic payback for the time he’d had too much weird plum brandy in Hungary and had taken his shirt off and called Captain America a twunk. (And the only reason he knew this had happened was because Nat had been there, and she’d filmed the whole thing on her phone, and then sent the video to Maria, who sent him eleven texts in a row that were nothing but strings of cry-laughing emojis.)

He shifted for what felt like probably the hundredth time, curling in on himself to try to conserve body heat. He’d started to shiver a few minutes ago. And of course Barnes was probably watching the whole thing and judging him.

Well, fuck it.

“Barnes,” he said, opening his eyes and squinting at him.

“Sam Wilson,” Barnes replied. 

“Get over here. I’m cold.”

“I. What?”

“I said, get over here. It’s cold as hell and I’m freezing my ass off, here.”

“I. I don’t understand.”

Sam huffed and sat up, wincing at how it made his head throb. “I bet you run warm like--you run warm, right?” he said, catching himself just in time before he mentioned Steve’s name. 

Barnes said nothing, just stared at Sam. He was--nervous, Sam realized. Which, okay, he probably hadn’t experienced friendly touch in 70 years, that made sense.

“I’m not gonna bite. I do anything you don’t like, you can say no and I’ll listen, okay?” Sam said, as gently as he could. Pretty gentle, he figured, considering all their previous interactions. “Or you could say no to everything. Just might be warmer if we huddle up, is all.” 

Barnes rolled to his feet and moved hesitantly over to where Sam was. “How...how do you want…”

“Here,” Sam said, taking one of Barnes’ wrists and tugging him down. Barnes’ eyes went wide, but he went biddably enough, sitting against the wall where Sam directed. Once he was sitting, Sam scooted over until their thighs were touching. Barnes wasn’t furnace-warm, like Steve, but he was warm enough that Sam felt his muscles start to relax. Meanwhile, he could feel that Barnes was as tense as a drawn bow next to him. He was almost vibrating with it.

“You know you don’t have to do this, right?” Sam said. Barnes didn’t relax, but he nodded, so Sam leaned up against him and rested his head on Barnes’ shoulder--the fleshy human one--moving slowly enough that he wouldn’t startle him. To his surprise, Barnes immediately lifted his arm and wrapped it around Sam’s shoulders, drawing Sam in towards his body. 

Sam shivered involuntarily at the simple warmth and comfort of human contact. Barnes was shivering too, and not from cold, but neither of them said anything. As minutes passed, Sam realized that Barnes had been right: he was exhausted, and maybe a little sleep would help. In the end, it was surprisingly easy to let himself relax and drift off, lulled by the slow, regular rhythm of Barnes’ breaths. Sam was already mostly asleep when it happened, so he couldn’t be sure if he’d imagined it, but he thought he felt Barnes’ fingers gently stroking his shoulder. 

__________

__________

Sam awoke with a start, blinking frantically. It was pitch-black in front of his eyes, and someone’s hands were on him. He flinched back, panicky with disorientation, until he remembered where he was. 

“Sam Wilson?” Barnes said. 

“Yeah. Sorry, forgot where I was.”

“I know.”

“They turn off the lights in here? Sorry, silly question. Is it time?”

“Yes. Can you see?”

“Not a damn thing,” Sam said, and then, feeling Barnes’ presence next to him abrupt vanish, “wait, where are you going?”

“You can’t see. And you are still hurt. So I will carry you.” 

“Uh,” Sam said.

Barnes made a quizzical noise. “I won’t drop you.” 

“No, I know. I just...why are you doing all this?” Sam asked. “Why try to escape now, and not before I got here?”

Barnes was silent for so long that Sam thought he wasn’t going to answer. Sam was about to tell him to forget he’d asked when Barnes said, “You are...brave. Kind. It is hard for me to, to remember to fight them. You helped. And I don’t. I don’t want them to hurt you again.”

“Oh,” Sam said. “Well, thank you and you’re welcome, I guess.”

Barnes huffed out a breath that could almost be a laugh. Sam felt the air move, and then, directly in front of him, Barnes said, “Here. Climb on my back.”

Sam edged forward, hands stretched out. He found Barnes’ shoulders and wrapped his arms around them, careful not to put pressure over Barnes’ throat. He suppressed a yelp when Barnes stood up abruptly and brought his legs up to wrap around Barnes’ hips. Barnes patted one of his knees as if to comfort him, then headed for the cell door. There was a screech of metal and a crunching noise, and then Barnes opened the door. He’d crushed the lock with his metal hand, Sam realized. 

Barnes took the steps two at a time. Sam hung on tightly and winced at each jolt--the abrupt movement made his head pound and spin. When they reached the top of the steps, he felt the muscles in Barnes’ shoulders bunch, and then there was a loud _crack_. The door split from its hinges, and Sam flinched back, squinting his eyes against the harsh fluorescent light of the corridor. In the distance, he heard a shout, and then the sound of running feet. 

“Shit,” Barnes muttered, and took off at a run down the corridor, away from the sounds of the guards. Sam hung on for dear life--even without boots, Barnes was _fast_ , almost as fast as Steve, and he was skidding around narrow corners and barely avoiding crashing into walls. When Barnes reached a door--undistinguished from all the other unmarked doors they’d passed, and damn, this facility was much bigger than Sam had expected--he used his metal hand to force the knob, breaking the lock with an audible crunch and forcing it open. He ducked inside and shut the door again, dragging a nearby table over to brace under the knob.

“This doesn’t look like an exit,” Sam said mildly, sliding off Barnes’ back and attempting to stand on his own feet. He swayed a little but stayed upright. 

Barnes jerked his chin towards the back wall. Sam turned to look. “Oh,” he said. “That is a lot of guns.” 

“Yes,” Barnes said, and stalked--there was no other word for it--over to the wall. Sam followed more gingerly, wishing futily that he still had his boots; the floor was cold and dirty. He followed Barnes’ example, selecting holsters from a cabinet and strapping them on, then choosing weapons. Sam picked out a pistol, a few spare magazines, and a knife for good measure. Then he looked over at Barnes.

“Jesus Christ,” Sam said, “Are you planning on fighting an entire army?” 

Barnes looked up from examining the sights of a sniper rifle. “...no,” he said, a little guiltily, and adjusted one of the--five? Six? guns he’d already strapped to himself.

“There’s just three of them,” Sam said. “How many guns do you need?”

Barnes shrugged defensively, but he put the sniper rifle back. “You should bring a second pistol,” he said. Sam sighed, but picked one out anyway, plus some extra ammunition.

Barnes padded back to the door and pressed his ear to it. After a moment, he beckoned to Sam, who followed him cautiously. Barnes shifted the table away from the door, drew one of his guns, and opened it slowly, peering out into the corridor. He looked first one, then the other, and then crept forward. Sam followed a few steps behind. 

Barnes clearly knew where he was going: he moved cautiously, alert to potential threats, but without hesitation. Sam was grateful. Between the concussion and his barely-contained terror when he was captured the day before, he had no real idea how to get out of the bunker. 

Barnes stopped abruptly at a turn in the corridor and held up a hand. Sam stopped, too, and cautiously unholstered one of his guns. He felt the familiar adrenaline rush of imminent danger. He crept closer to Barnes, who glanced back at him, then slowly leaned out to check the corridor.

There was a click, and Barnes went visibly tense. “I know you’re there, Soldier,” a voice called from down the corridor. “You can’t hide from us. Come on out.”

Barnes hesitated, and then, to Sam’s horror, stepped out into the corridor. “There you are, Soldier,” the voice said. “You see? That wasn’t so hard.” Barnes said nothing, and stared down at his feet.

“You need us, Soldier,” the voice continued. “Otherwise you do things like this, and people get hurt. You don’t want anyone to get hurt, do you?” Barnes shook his head. Sam felt sick to his stomach.

“Now, where is your new friend? Don’t tell me you left him behind.” Barnes swallowed convulsively and flicked a glance at where Sam was crouched. Sam froze, heart beating so loudly he was sure the Hydra agent down the corridor could hear it.

“You know what happens when you make friends, Soldier,” the voice continued. “You know what you have to do now.” Sam’s stomach sank. He had a horrible feeling about what the Hydra agent meant.

Barnes’ jaw worked, and a shudder went through him. “N-no,” he whispered. 

“What did you say, Soldier? I know you didn’t refuse an order,” the voice said, all false sweetness.

“No,” Barnes said more clearly. “No. I won’t do it.”

“Really,” the voice said. “Soldier. Shoot him.” 

“N-no. No.” 

“ _Soldat. Ubey yego_.”

Barnes hesitated for a long moment and looked at Sam. Sam met his eyes, and realized he knew what he had to do. Heart racing, he put his back against the wall, unsheathed his knife and tilted it so that the blade reflected down the corridor. The reflection was small and distorted, but he could see the third Hydra agent from before--the only one of the three to ask Sam intelligent questions. The agent’s uniform was rumpled and ill-fitting-- _I’ll call this one Frumpy_ , Sam thought, a little hysterically--but his grip on his gun was steady and confident.

“ _Soldat_ ,” Frumpy called, “Why are you waiting?”

Sam sheathed his knife, drew his gun, flicked the safety off, and looked over at Barnes again. He held up three fingers. Barnes gave a barely perceptible nod.

“ _Soldat_!”

Two.

“Kill him!”

One.

Sam stepped out and fired, using the memory of the reflection to aim. The first bullet went wide, but the second hit something, judging by Frumpy’s yelp. In the corner of his eye, he saw Barnes retreat back behind the corner. The agent brought his gun up and fired once, twice, and Sam fired a third shot, ignoring a burning sensation in his side. This last shot hit its target, striking Frumpy between the eyes. The man collapsed. Sam slowly lowered his gun.

“Sam Wilson,” Barnes said, suddenly right next to him. “Thank you.” 

“Yeah, man, you’re welcome,” Sam said, panting from the adrenaline rush. 

“You’re hurt,” Barnes said. 

“What?”

Barnes pointed to his side. Sam looked down. “Oh,” he said. There was a graze along his ribs on his left side, and blood was seeping from the wound. He felt a little dizzy, though that was probably still his concussion.

“You need medical attention.”

“It’s just a graze,” Sam said, “I’m not gonna die from it--hey!” Barnes had scooped him up in a princess carry and was jogging along the corridor. 

“I am going to get you medical attention,” Barnes said firmly, skidding around a corner and shooting a second Hydra agent without even slowing down. 

“I swear to God, Barnes, you--ow!”

“Shhh,” Barnes said, stopping in front of a heavy door and setting Sam down gently. Sam opened his mouth to keep complaining, but then he heard voices from the other side. He shut it again.

Barnes pressed his ear against the door and listened for a long moment. Then he took Sam’s elbow and led him back down the hall and into an unoccupied room they’d passed. 

“The reinforcements are here?” Sam whispered.

Barnes nodded. “We need a distraction,” he whispered back.

“Did you have something in mind?”

Barnes reached into a pouch strapped to one of his holsters and produced a handful of tiny grenades. 

“Where the hell did you get--you know what, never mind,” Sam said, “I don’t want to know. What’s the plan?” 

Barnes stared at him. “A distraction,” he said. 

Sam stared right back. “Does this distraction require that I don’t know the details?”

Barnes looked weirdly pleased. “Yes,” he said. “Just stay here. Out of sight.”

“Fine,” Sam said, rolling his eyes and wincing when it made his head hurt. He retreated into a corner where he couldn’t easily be seen from the doorway. For good measure, he drew his second gun and loaded it--he’d dropped the first when Barnes picked him up. 

“Be ready to run,” Barnes said, and then padded over to the door. He looked out into the corridor, checked over his submachine gun and two of his pistols, and then pulled out some of those little shiny grenades. Sam put his hands over his ears. 

Barnes stepped into the corridor. Sam heard two quick bursts of fire from his submachine gun, followed a few seconds later by the boom of a grenade. Barnes ducked back into the room and pressed himself against the wall next to the door, panting. Sam uncovered his ears, and heard shouting coming from the corridor, followed by the commotion of running, booted feet. The Hydra agents thundered past the doorway, still shouting. Sam pressed himself harder against the wall, hardly daring to breathe, but it turned out that none of the agents were feeling particularly curious.

As soon as the agents had passed, Barnes raised his eyebrows at Sam and beckoned him over. “On my signal,” he murmured, then ghosted out of the door once more. Sam covered his ears again and leaned out to watch him lob a series of grenades down the stairs where the crowd of agents had run. Immediately, Barnes turned and sprinted back towards Sam, gesturing frantically up towards the exit. Sam took that as his cue and took off running up the corridor, stumbling a little when the grenades went off behind them. His side burned and his head throbbed, but he pushed himself, and had nearly reached the heavy door when Barnes caught up with him. 

Barnes didn’t even pause in his stride to pick up Sam. He hoisted Sam over his right shoulder in a fireman’s carry and used the other arm, his left, to wrench the door open. Sam couldn’t see from his vantage point, but he felt Barnes draw a gun, heard a shot, heard Barnes grunt a little, and then there were four shots in quick succession. They must have left a few agents in the room--he pushed himself up enough to glimpse their corpses as Barnes hurtled through the room. 

Barnes burst through another door and Sam clapped his hands over his eyes. The sudden daylight was painfully bright. The world shifted around him nauseatingly, and he uncovered them again, blinking and squinting at the light. Barnes had shifted him into a princess carry again, and was sprinting across the field Sam had crossed the day before, heading for the cover of the trees. Once he reached it, he ducked behind a tree and leaned up against it, panting. 

“Are you. Okay?” he asked, between breaths. 

“Apart from the obvious, sure,” Sam said. “What about you?”

“M’fine,” Barnes said, looking suspiciously shifty.

“Okay,” Sam said. “You feel like putting me down yet?”

“No,” Barnes said. He looked up abruptly and clutched Sam a little closer. He really was startlingly strong, Sam thought distractedly--something Sam really should be used to, after weeks of sharing hotel rooms with Steve, the world’s most aggressive sleep-cuddler. He didn’t know what it said about him that he thought it was kind of sweet--both of them.

A moment later, Sam heard it, too: the sound of an approaching engine. Barnes quickly retreated further into the woods, but Sam looked back in time to see a black SUV skid to a stop next to his own car, still parked where he’d left it. The driver’s door opened and Steve jumped out, looking frantic and windswept and heroically handsome. “Sam?” he called, showing absolutely zero sense of self-preservation. 

Barnes sped up. “Stop!” Sam hissed, smacking him in the chest. “He’s here to rescue us! Turn around!”

Barnes stopped, but didn’t turn around. He looked down at Sam, brow furrowed. He was--terrified, Sam realized. Terrified of Steve, when probably the worst thing Steve would do was to look like a very sad golden retriever at him.

“Barnes,” he said more gently, “he’s not gonna hurt you. He won’t even make you stay. He just wants to know you’re alive.” Barnes looked doubtful, but Sam pressed on. “If you have to leave, at least let me down first so I can go see him. I won’t tell him which way you went. I promise.” 

For a long moment, Barnes hesitated.

“I trusted you,” Sam said. “Can you trust me now?” 

Barnes closed his eyes. Then--”Okay,” he whispered, “okay.” He turned around and walked slowly and hesitantly towards where Sam could still hear Steve shouting for him. 

“Sam? Sam!” Steve was calling, when Barnes stepped out of the woods and onto the path. He shifted his weight, and Sam heard a twig snap--deliberately, he realized. Steve’s head whipped around toward the sound, and his face went through a series of emotional contortions, relief-disbelief-fear-panic-disbelief-hope, that would have been hilarious under any other circumstances. Sam felt Barnes’ grip on him tighten. 

“Sam,” Steve breathed. “B-bucky?” His eyes were wide as saucers. 

“Hey, Steve,” Sam said, waving from where Barnes was clutching him against his chest--a bit like he was a giant teddy bear, he realized. He could hear Barnes’ heart hammering. 

“H-hi,” Steve said faintly, waving back. “Are you--are you okay?” 

Sam opened his mouth to respond, but Barnes cut him off. “He needs medical attention,” he announced, then snapped his mouth shut again. Sam stared at him, and Barnes’ cheeks went faintly red. 

Steve looked worried. “Are you--uh…” he trailed off. 

_He thinks Barnes might have hurt me_ , Sam realized. “He’s being a little dramatic about it,” Sam said out loud, gently patting Barnes’ arm. “Nothing too serious.” 

“‘Nothing too serious,’” Barnes echoed, “you have a concussion.” He carefully shifted his grip to pull Sam even closer to his chest.

Steve’s face went through another series of complicated contortions. “Bucky,” he said, voice thick with emotion.

“Do you have medical supplies,” Barnes asked, with all the words and none of the intonation of a question. When Steve didn’t move, he adjusted his hold on Sam again and walked past Steve towards the SUV. Steve unfroze after a moment and darted past him to open the vehicle’s back doors.

“Supplies--yes, I, uh,” Steve said, very coherently, pulling containers out of compartments inside the vehicle. Barnes shouldered past him to set Sam down gently in the back of the vehicle and started sorting methodically through the supplies. Sam breathed carefully and stared at the ground, willing it to stop spinning. Steve stood behind Barnes and waved his hands a little, like he didn’t know what do with them but felt like he had to do something.

“Hey, Steve,” Sam said, sucking in a breath through his teeth at the sting of Barnes disinfecting the cut on his head. “You got my message?”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner, Sam,” he said, looking crushingly guilty.

“Turned out okay,” Sam said, lifting his arms so Barnes could pull his shirt off. “Barnes took good care of me.” Barnes flushed and ducked his head. Sam patted Barnes’ shoulder absently, then refocused when his hand came away sticky. “Barnes! You’re bleeding!”

Barnes hunched his shoulders in, looking defensive. “S’fine,” he said, “I’ll heal.” 

Steve’s expression of unrestrained joy at hearing that Barnes had helped Sam crumpled. “Buck,” he said, reaching out.

Barnes ducked away from his touch, bending down to clean the graze over Sam’s ribs. Steve looked like someone had kicked a puppy in front of him. 

“Oh my god,” Sam said. “No, we’re not doing this. Barnes, you’re letting one of us check your injury and do any necessary first aid. Steve, none of this is your fault--quit acting like you gotta atone for some kind of sins. It’s obnoxious. We’re gonna get bandaged up and then Steve is gonna drive us back to my motel room in Trenton and I am taking a nap _in a goddamned bed_.” 

Barnes and Steve both looked a little stunned, but it worked. Barnes finished applying a bandage to the bullet graze and then stripped off his own shirt, offering his shoulder for Sam to check over. Steve stared at Barnes’ metal arm for a long moment with an expression Sam recognized--the expression that meant Steve was about to say or do something dramatic--but Sam raised his eyebrows at him, and Steve went all meek and mollified. He ducked around to the side of the car, and Sam could hear him open one of the doors and root around inside as Sam carefully disinfected the shallow wound on Barnes’ shoulder.

Sam had just finished applying a bandage when Steve returned with with bottles of water and protein bars. Sam took one of each gratefully, trying not to think how disgusting his hands probably were as he shoved the protein bar into his mouth as fast as possible while touching it as little as possible. It tasted like chalk, but he was too hungry to care. Barnes watched him eat and drink, then cautiously took a bottle and a protein bar of his own. Steve smiled at him like Barnes had just made his week. Barnes went a little pink-cheeked. Then Steve turned the same smile on Sam, who went a little weak in the knees. Steve had that effect on people. 

Or maybe it was the concussion. 

Sam had expected that it would be hard to convince Barnes to come with them, but in the end, he fussily helped Sam into the back seat, buckled his seat belt for him, and then walked around the car and climbed in the other side. Steve, watching them in the rear-view mirror, looked like he might start levitating with happiness. 

Not five minutes after they'd left, Barnes fell asleep on Sam's shoulder. His hair was greasy and he smelled like he hadn't showered in a month, but Sam felt an unexpected wave of affection. It must have shown on his face, because Steve grinned at him in the rear-view mirror. Sam flipped him off, which only made Steve’s grin wider. 

Sam was used to Steve’s terrible driving, and soon enough, he was starting to drift off, too. They’d left his car and his phone back at the site, but he was too tired to care. Steve could go get them tomorrow. He couldn’t even bring himself to care that Barnes was drooling on his shoulder. _What a weird fucking day_ , he thought, and let sleep take him. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm at woofgender on tumblr. It's about 60% pictures of dogs.


End file.
